Homeopath and freelance journalist, Christine Aziz, won the £50,000 publishing deal with Pan McMillan with her novel The Olive Readers in which "A young woman writes to us from the future, telling us about a workd we would all shiver to inhabit..." (Maria Rejt, Pan McMillan).
Runners-up Alison Penton Harper, Spencer Jordan, Dave Fiddamore, Rachel Zadok te Riele also secure themselves a surprise publishing offer from Pan Macmillan...
Christine Aziz, a 52 year old grandmother from Bournemouth was announced as the winner of the show’s ‘How to get published’ competition securing herself a publishing contract with Pan Macmillan and an advance of £50,000. The standard was so amazing in a shock decision Pan Macmillan also offered the four runners up the opportunity to be published with advances of £20,000 each.
Since the competition was announced last September, more than 46,000 viewers submitted manuscripts. The Richard & Judy team and Pan Macmillan whittled the entries down to a shortlist of five. All five come from diverse backgrounds and all have written very different novels.
Winner Christine Aziz was born in Yorkshire and left school aged 15 with one GCE in English. She has worked as a shop assistant, dental receptionist, factory packer, singer and cleaning lady. She also worked at Westminster Press as a news reporter for three years and although she didn’t enjoy the pressure of journalism, she never gave up her love of writing. She currently lives in Bournemouth, has one grandchild and practices Homeopathy.
Her stunningly original winning novel provisionally entitled ‘The Olive Readers’ is a portrait of a dystopian future and a love story of both courage and redemption. It is a tale of a young woman who writes from the future, telling of a world we would all shiver to inhabit.
Asked what winning would mean Christine said earlier today ‘The best thing would be the luxury of having time to finish writing my novel, not having to worry about money... it would be the most amazing boost to my confidence’.
The final delivered book will be given the full sales and marketing treatment accorded to a best-selling author and will be featured on Richard & Judy throughout the publishing process.
Judy Finnigan commented "We are extremely impressed by the calibre of our viewers, the judging team had a really tough job.” Richard Madeley added “The standard of the finalist is staggeringly high. All are more than worthy of a publishing contract and the panel are convinced they have found a future Booker Prize winner.”
The winner's dedicated editor Maria Rejt, Publishing Director for Pan Macmillan said; ‘The shortlist of five reflects an extraordinary range of talent from the extremely commercial to the exquisitely literary. What all five authors have in common is that they have all given us characters we care about intensely. Each author leads us on a journey with great skill and empathy’.
Maria Rejt has been responsible for publishing and discovering a wide range of authors including Colin Dexter, Minette Walters, Kathy Reichs, Bella Pollen (former Richard & Judy Best Summer Read), Martin Cruz Smith, Scott Turow and C J Sansom. Rejt’s most recent discovery was Daniel Mason, author of the acclaimed debut novel The Piano Tuner which has sold a quarter of a million copies to date.
Millions of people daydream about becoming novelists and writing the next bestseller. Many of these take the next step of putting pen to paper but only a very small number will ever be published. So how does an aspiring writer go about turning a hobby into a career?
In a new feature we demonstrated how wannabe novelists could give themselves the best possible opportunity to realise their writing dreams. We also ran a competition where one viewer will win the ultimate literary prize: a publishing deal with Pan Macmillan, with a £50,000 advance.
Thank you to everyone who entered our ‘How to Get Published’ competition. The response was staggering with over 40,000 entries.
We would like to stress how impressed all of our judges were with the standard of writing. Choosing only five finalists was a very difficult process as there were a large number of entries that showed considerable talent and potential.
In the sixth and final week of our hugely popular regular feature, Richard & Judy were joined by best-selling author Tony Parsons and Maria Rejt from publishers Pan Macmillan. We saw our remaining two wannabe writers attempt to pitch their novels to three leading literary agents.
In the fifth week of our strand we looked at the role of literary agents. They are the crucial link between author and publisher and can turn potential into a profession. So how do you go out about finding the right agent? And how do you make sure that they are going to be interested in you?
Joining Richard & Judy in the studio to discuss this was best-selling author James Patterson and Alison Baverstock, an expert on how best to pitch yourself to an agent. On VT, we saw our five wannabe writers attempt to pitch their novels to three leading literary agents.
For more info on this item, have a look at the following books:
JAMES PATTERSON
James Patterson’s latest novel London Bridges is published today (Monday 4th October) in hardback by Headline and costs £17.99 (ISBN 0755305787)
His last book The Big Bad Wolf is also published by Headline and costs £6.99 (ISBN 0755300297)
ALISON BAVERSTOCK
Alison Baverstock’s book: Marketing Your Book: An Author’s Guide is published by A&C Black and costs £8.99 (ISBN 0713659653)
In the fourth week of our strand we looked at the importance of knowing your genre as part of the writing process.
Joining Richard & Judy in the studio to discuss this were ‘chick-lit’ author Marian Keyes and crime writer John Connolly.
You can find out more about the author Marian Keyes by logging onto her website here
You can find out more about the author John Connelly by logging onto his website here
In the studio Richard & Judy’s Book Club novelist Joseph O’Connor, author of Star Of The Sea, and Wolf Brother author Michelle Paver joined Richard & Judy to discuss the benefits of researching your novel.
In the second instalment we sent our five wannabe writers to their local writing circles: we found out what the members of these groups thought of the creative writing our group carried out at last week’s writing course, and we established what you can gain from joining your local writing circle.
For a comprehensive list of writing circles around the UK you can log on here
The Directory of Writer’s Circles
Published by Diana Hayden
ISBN 1-904065-05-8
In our first instalment we sent our five wannabe writers on an intensive creative writing course: we found out a little about them and their aspirations; heard how the creative writing course could help them and got some great creative writing tips from the published authors who teach the course.
Our aspiring novelists' creative writing course was at THE ARVON FOUNDATION
For more information call their National Office on 020 7931 7611, or visit their website here
The following also offer creative writing courses:
CABOODLE WRITING RETREATS
Telephone: 01502 676 107
WRITE IN THE FOREST
Telephone: 01590 624 098
